Royal couple open JCB Academy

The £22M JCB Academy was today officially opened by The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

The JCB Academy is the first school of its kind in the UK for the education of 14 to 19-year-olds with a core focus on engineering and is designed to produce the engineers and business leaders of the future.

The first 170 students began their studies in September last year and eventually it will house 540 students from Staffordshire and Derbyshire. Already the intake for September this year is oversubscribed.

Like other state schools, the £22M JCB Academy is funded by the Department for Education, but as main sponsor JCB contributed 10 per cent of the capital and donated the mill in which it is based.

While the idea for the JCB Academy began life in the summer 2006 with a Government feasibility study, it has been created in a Grade II listed Arkwright Mill dating from 1781 and has been equipped with in excess of £1M worth of modern engineering equipment which will help pupils turn their design ideas into reality.

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